They Should Have Warned Us
by thewildwilds
Summary: He's gotten transforming from one persona to the other down to a science. He dons the golden suit and mask like it's nothing but a second skin. Clips on the utility belt like it's always meant to be there. The steel trident in his hand is simply an extension of his arm. In seconds, Finnick O'Daire is gone, and the masked vigilante Lancer stands in his place. Modern Superhero AU.


_I'm not sure this was what I wanted it to be, but when I opened the oven, this is what I got._

_Okay, you caught me; I just wanted more Odesta porn. I have zero shame._

_Happy Valentine's Day!_

_Rated for explicit sexual content and mild language._

* * *

The first distress call comes at night.

He's gotten transforming from one persona to the other down to a science. He dons the golden suit and mask like it's nothing but a second skin. Clips on the utility belt like it's always meant to be there. The steel trident in his hand is simply an extension of his arm. In seconds, Finnick O'Daire is gone, and the masked vigilante Lancer stands in his place.

When he arrives, the site is already crawling with activity. Numerous police cars from the Panem City Police Department line the streets around the building. Police officers have blocked off a good perimeter of the area, where many civilians and reporters crowd around to get a good look at the action. Lancer studies the building. Cashmere &amp; Gloss headquarters, one of the largest jewelers established here in Panem City. Doubtlessly millions of dollars are held in that building in some form, whether material or otherwise. The metal security shutters are down, but there's no gunfire to be heard. It's clear: a hostage situation.

He approaches one man that stands out from the rest with his salt and pepper hair. "What's the damage, Heavensbee?"

Police Chief Heavensbee looks up at him, his face grim. "Four of my men injured. Nothing fatal, so far. She's got the place locked up tight. We've sent an extraction team already to get hostages out."

"She?"

Heavensbee nods. "It's her again."

"Great," he mutters under his breath. "Any demands?"

"No more than the usual. 'Leave me to my devices and nobody gets hurt.'"

"Where is she now?"

"We've tracked her to the building's server room. Nobody else seems to be in there with her." He points to a set of windows near the very top of the building.

Lancer nods. "Got it. Tell your team to focus on getting those hostages out. I'm going in for her."

"Be careful in there, Lancer," Heavensbee says before barking the orders into a walkie-talkie.

Lancer effortlessly scales the adjacent building next to the headquarters. Just a place where he can get some higher footing. He pulls the grappling line off his belt, counts the appropriate amount of floors, and fires. With the line held taut, he slices through the air, crashes through the window and rolls with the momentum when he lands. _Well, that's one way to make an entrance. _If she's anywhere in the vicinity, she will have heard that, and she'll be ready for him. But he'll be ready for her too… he hopes.

He traverses the floor cautiously, trident ready in his hand. The place is quiet, but he can hear a faint, mechanical buzzing sound coming from one room and he heads in that direction. When he finds it, the room is dark, but illuminated by a multitude of screens all around. Each one flashes something different, charts and code and all sorts of data. Brightly colored wires litter the floor; he has to tread carefully to make sure he doesn't trip over any.

And there, at the far end of the room, he catches sight of the culprit, dressed in her sleek, armored suit, arms fitted with large mechanized gauntlets – her signature weapon – which she is currently fiddling with. He knows this woman.

"Shatter," he says, making his presence known. He tightens his grip on his trident.

Shatter turns wide eyes in his direction and blinks owlishly, regarding him like an old friend spotted at the mall by happenstance. "Ah! Lancer. So good to see you." Not too good an old friend apparently, because she immediately goes back to fiddling at the console on her gauntlet like he's not even there.

Not one to be ignored, and certainly not one to be outplayed by her theatrics, he leaps at her without warning, trident arcing along with him, but she deftly evades without looking up, and the tines of his trident embed into the tile where she'd just stood.

There's a smile playing on her painted lips. "Well, hello to you too, Lancer. I know you're eager to catch up, but I'm afraid I'm just about done here." She motions to their surroundings with a flourish of her hand.

"Good. Then you won't mind coming down to the station with me."

"Oh, I _really_ don't plan on doing anything of the sort." She inputs a sequence into her mechanized gauntlets, and suddenly the screens flicker off all at once, and a second later the sprinkler system springs to life. It's far more than a normal sprinkler system should be capable; it's practically explosive, like heavy rain, completely drenching him and clouding his vision in a matter of seconds. He loses sight of her in the deluge, only aware of her presence by the sound of her laughter echoing around him.

He sputters on a mouthful of water. He's certainly in no danger of drowning, but the use of a distraction is clear. Even with the heavy shower of water, Lancer takes several deep breaths and pushes all extraneous thoughts from his head. He knows everything about water. He knows the calmness of its flow. He knows the pattern in which it moves. Water could never hinder him. Water is his ally.

_Concentrate, concentrate – there!_ It's just a small glimpse of her armor, but it's enough. He widens his stance, braces his feet firmly on the ground, sucks in a slow breath, and thrusts forward with his trident. A surge of phantom force bursts forth from the tines, visibly parting the spray of water like a violent gust of wind. It misses its target, speeding past just in front of her, but the drag force is enough to knock her off balance. Her arms fly up to shield her face, then outward to brace against the wall she crashes into, soaking up the majority of the force, but when she rises, she's visibly shaken.

She whirls at him, equally drenched as he is, that wicked smirk now replaced with a scowl. It wavers for a beat, and then she's smiling again.

"Impressive. I suppose I should have known that a little water wouldn't stop you. Look, I would love to play, Lancer, but I really haven't the time." Shatter winds back her arm and smashes her fist against the nearest window. The meaning of it clicks in his head a fraction of a second before she throws him a cheeky look over her shoulder and flings herself out the window like a bird taking flight.

They're on the fifteenth floor.

Lancer rushes to the window, barely manages to skid to a halt to keep himself from flying out the jagged opening, in time to watch her plummeting to the roof of the neighborhood building. Shatter flips mid-air, and lands right on her feet with finality. Unscathed, she tosses him another look over her shoulder and runs off. Quickly, he reaches for his grappling line on his belt, shoots the line to the adjacent building, and vaults after her.

His suit doesn't have the same long-fall absorbing technology hers does, so while she jumps from rooftop to rooftop, he gives chase by air, weaving around the buildings like a pendulum.

Then she makes a sudden change in direction while he's in mid-swing and he cannot change his trajectory fast enough to keep up. When he doubles back, she's gone, without even the sound of her laughter to guide him.

Grimly, he comes to rest at street level and holsters his grappling line. She's gone, and he won't be able to catch her, which means he's failed. At least he knows that all the hostages are most likely safe with the police, but it still feels like a failure. He's not sure what she wanted, but whatever it was, she got away with it.

"Dammit," he hisses, stabbing the prongs of his trident into the concrete.

* * *

As usual, Finnick O'Daire doesn't get much sleep. He almost wishes he could say he had a fun or even sleazy reason for it. But no. His sleepless nights have nothing to do with booze and sex and everything to do with patrolling the streets of Panem City. He hopes the thick frames of his glasses are enough to hide the dark bags under his eyes. If anybody asks, he'll have to say it's because of this marketing campaign he's slaved over for three long, arduous months with no end in sight. So he's hyped up on coffee with tons of cream and at least five lumps of sugar to help him get through the day.

"Morning, Finn."

He looks up to see his officemate, Peeta, propping his arms and chin along the cubicle partition they share. Peeta is the other part of getting him through the day.

"Morning, Peet," he answers. He raises his mug in place of a wave before taking a sip.

"How's that campaign going?"

Finnick points his index finger to his temple and makes a motion with his thumb like he's cocking and firing a gun. Peeta grins knowingly. When the senior art director has been out of earshot, he's been grumbling to Peeta nonstop about nightmare clients, scatterbrained production artists, and inhumane deadlines.

Peeta Mellark is one of the most recent hires at the marketing agency. He took over the cubicle next to Finnick's, after another art director and his previous officemate stormed out of the building, shouting up and down the halls that she had enough of this dead-end life and swearing she would finally go back to her true passion of exotic dancing under her new name, Glimmer Crystal. Really, he couldn't fault the woman for going after her dreams, and it made for a great conversation piece when Peeta came along to take her place. Despite the age difference, he got along swimmingly with Peeta. The two of them often took their breaks together, which slowly evolved into drinks after work while complaining about their boss. Certainly nothing brings two people together better than a mutual dislike for another person. He can say without hesitation that Peeta is one of his closest friends.

Not too close though.

"So," Peeta drawls out the word, a familiar glint in his eyes.

"Oh no," Finnick says in mock dismay, mentally bracing himself for whatever plot his friend may be cooking up.

"I was thinking," Peeta continues, undeterred, twiddling a ballpoint pen between two fingers. "Katniss and I have been planning to go to this new seafood restaurant in town. And we both know how much you love seafood, so we thought you could join us. And maybe, if you're interested, we could invite one of Katniss's friends and make it a double date."

Finnick has to laugh at that, because this is exactly what he was expecting. "Peet, you always try and set me up with girls your age. As in seven or eight years younger than me."

Peeta shrugs. "So? Girls like an older guy."

"True. But I'm not interested." His words are lilted like a song. "Besides, I've got a ton of work to finish up. This campaign won't coordinate itself."

His friend sighs dramatically. "Man, you're always working late. Or working over the weekends. Or just plain working. I get the deadlines thing, but… Don't you ever want anything… _more_ with your life?"

"Ouch. Harsh words, man."

"Aw, I didn't mean it like that. I just think you need to get out more. Live a little. Paint the town red. You're still young and good-looking. If I were into guys, I'd totally do you."

His words give Finnick pause; not from Peeta's offer – God, no – but from a life he had lived for a short time. He wasn't rich by any degree, but he was – is – charming and attractive. After graduating college, he hit a rough patch in his superhero career, so he hung up his suit and fell into a completely self-centered lifestyle. He used his looks to his advantage – looks he'd been ashamed of for so long. He had bedded a fancy string of lovers, women with names he'd never remember because he called them all the exact same thing: "Hey, baby."

But the call of the mask proved to be too strong. He realized that crime waits for no one. So he gave up his playboy lifestyle and vowed he would never walk down that path ever again.

Finnick cocks his head to the side a bit and flashes a tight-lipped smile. "Well, thanks for the offer, Peet, but I'll have to decline, on both accounts. My life is a little too busy right now for anything like that."

* * *

He hasn't always been the masked vigilante known to Panem City as Lancer.

(Truly, when are they ever born into the mask?)

Once upon a time, he'd been a normal little boy, living with his two parents in a small apartment building in a dilapidated part of town. In his youth, he'd been rather awkward. He had pale skin, thick-rimmed glasses, and long scrawny limbs that worked as foreign as they felt. The kids in the neighborhood poked fun at his red-gold hair, or his knobby knees, or the gap in his front teeth.

Then a car crash took his parents away, and he, too, was taken away from the life he had once lived. But instead of being thrown into the local orphanage, for whatever reason, he was taken to one of the ritzier streets. He fell into the care of Capitol Heart Orphanage, run by Coriolanus Snow.

Snow was a kind old man, with a refined stride and a noble air. He spoke humbly, and he called him Mr. O'Daire, like he were an adult, not just a little kid, like his parents used to treat him when they were still alive.

The orphanage itself was beautiful. Long echoing hallways, lots of lights, comfortable rooms, and a big rose garden out back. And very, very clean, a feat in itself considering the amount of children running up and down the halls.

Everyday, Snow encouraged the orphans in his charge to be the best they could be. His belief was that children were the future; how fitting that Capitol Heart's motto was even "Children today, children tomorrow, children forever." Everybody had a talent. Wiress was smart, Enobaria ran fast, and Brutus was strong.

Finnick was the beautiful one. It wasn't much of a talent, and he did not understand how Snow could think so, because even though he was a kid, he could see he did not look anything like the handsome, muscled men advertised on TV. But Snow insisted he had an eye for these sorts of things.

Out of all his children, Snow said he loved Finnick best. Even though he was seeking a good home and good parents for all the children in his charge, he believed Finnick to be just like a son to him. Finnick only smiled.

But that was a secret he had to keep to himself.

On the eve of his twelfth birthday, Snow approached him with one of his regal smiles. "Tomorrow's a very big day for you, Mr. O'Daire," he said.

"I'm going to be adopted?"

"Oh yes. You'll be going to a very nice place. I have high hopes for you, Mr. O'Daire. Very high hopes."

It was a tradition at the orphanage. Once a child reached twelve, Snow would find the perfect family for him or her. Finnick could hardly contain his excitement, because Snow always read letters from all the children who'd been adopted before him, and they always sounded so happy. Normally most families did not want to adopt a child so old. But if anybody could find happy homes for his charges, it'd be Coriolanus Snow. At the time, he hadn't thought to wonder why the other kids were adopted only at twelve, and no younger.

He couldn't sleep, too anxious for the following day, so he noticed immediately when somebody entered his room in the middle of the night. Before he could see or ask who it was, the figure stuffed a cloth over his face, drugged him and carried him through a secret door carefully hidden in the rose garden.

When he came to, Snow was standing over him, dressed in a pristine white lab coat. _Too_ clean. Finnick was bound to a cold metal table, and no matter how much he struggled, he could not break free. Snow held a syringe up to the bright halogen lights, illuminating the acid green liquid inside. "I believe this serum will finally be my breakthrough," Snow said, with lips that smiled too wide. "And if all goes well, you shall be the first. And then you truly _will_ be like a son to me. Yes, I have high hopes for you, Mr. O'Daire. Very high hopes indeed."

He couldn't move, couldn't fight, couldn't even _scream_ as he watched the sinister glint of the needle draw closer and closer.

Then a loud _BANG!_ drew away Snow's attention, and the man and his needle suddenly disappeared from his sight. Finnick's head was strapped down to the table, so he wasn't able to see what was happening around him. All he could hear were the loud bangs and crashes, the grunts of exertion, and the shouts of a fight. Then everything went quiet, and a man wearing a dark suit and cowl approached him cautiously and began undoing his bonds.

"Hey, kid. Don't worry. He won't hurt you anymore. You're safe."

When the police arrived, they found all the bodies of the children formerly thought to have been adopted there in the rose garden. All the letters had been a lie. It turned out that Coriolanus Snow had been hell-bent on creating the "ideal creation," perfect beings far superior to the common folk. Beautiful, strong, intelligent, talented. He spent years experimenting on orphan children, because who would possibly notice a missing child nobody loved? This monstrous crime, dominating the headlines for months, became known as Snow's "Victors Project."

Finnick stood, swathed in a large wool blanket, while policemen and paramedics surrounded him, asking him all sorts of unintelligible questions he did not bother to answer. The man in the black suit and cowl had disappeared into the night.

To this day, he hates being called Mr. O'Daire.

That's when Margaret Cohen came into his life. Though he just called her Mags. (She insisted so.)

She adopted him after the incident, because he did not want to be put into another orphanage.

It took him a while to warm up to Mags, especially after Snow. Mostly, Finnick kept to himself. But the old woman was patient with him. She left his meals outside his room whenever he didn't come out to eat, which was often. Sometimes, he'd venture outside of the apartment for some fresh air. Many days, he would contemplate simply running away and living on his own. But he always came back. He wasn't sure if it was out of fear, or something more. It took him many weeks to actually start regularly having meals in the dining room with Mags, but when he did, she grinned so brightly he thought perhaps her toothless smile could power the whole city. He had to admit, the crusty dinner bread she baked (a special recipe of hers that used sea salt and seaweed) was absolutely delicious.

Sometimes a man with dark hair and stubble on his chin would visit. Mags introduced him as Haymitch Abernathy, CEO of H&amp;C Enterprises. Haymitch would smile and wave at Finnick every time they met, but Finnick would never greet him back.

At night, Finnick had terrible nightmares of a man all in pristine white with blood dripping from his gaping maw. One such night, he woke with a start, mouth stretched wide in a scream, but no sound came from his throat. A light from the hallway streamed into his room. He padded barefoot to the source, and saw that Mags was talking to Haymitch, both their voices hushed, no doubt to keep from waking him. He could only make out snippets of their conversation; "danger," "kid," "night," "city," and "safe."

Instead of creeping at the corner, Finnick walked straight out to see them, because he was tired of secrets. Secrets never did him any good.

"I know who you are. You're the one who saved me at the orphanage. When Snow was going to use that needle on me."

Both adults turned wide eyes at him.

"Kid, I—"

"I want you to teach me."

Based on their reactions, it wasn't what they were expecting.

Haymitch was ardently against it. "You've been through enough as it is, kid. Believe me. Hold onto the rest of your childhood while you can. Don't jump into something like this."

But how could he go on pretending like nothing had ever happened? He thought of his friends, Wiress, and Enobaria, and Brutus, believed to be living with loving families far from Panem City, instead all dead – mere failed experiments, tossed aside like garbage. He thought of himself strapped to that cold metal table and how he _never_ wanted to feel that helpless ever again. No matter which way he looked at it, he could only come to one conclusion. His childhood was already gone. Snow had taken it, and there was no getting it back. And if there were more people like Snow in the world, then he wanted to stop them, before they took away anything else.

In the end, Mags was the one that took him under her wing, to his surprise. She'd been reluctant at first, and Finnick was equally as skeptical, but in due time, he knew there couldn't possibly be a better mentor for him. The woman was in her sixties, but in her prime, she'd been known as the Silver Line. Though she'd been retired from the masked vigilante business for well over twenty-five years, she could throw any grappling line like nobody's business. He had the pleasure of witnessing her expertise at combat when a would-be robber tried to grab her purse while they were walking home from the grocer's and she beat him into submission using nothing but her cane.

She'd take him to the pool almost every day as a regular part of his training. Over time, his scrawny limbs filled out with hard, lean muscle from the laps he would do again and again. His pasty skin bronzed into a healthy, golden tan the more time he spent out in the sun. The gap between his front teeth was gone. One day, he looked in the mirror, and could not quite believe that the person staring back at him was the same pale, gangly, bespectacled kid from years ago. _Perhaps there really was merit to what Snow used to tell me_, he thought bitterly.

The frequency of his nightmares gradually diminished night after night. Whenever the terrors still managed to creep into his head, they would morph into something else. In those dreams, he was still a little boy, strapped to the table, but then he would be saved by a mysterious figure. Sometimes the figure was a man in a black suit and cowl. Sometimes it'd be a silvery woman he'd only seen in photos. And sometimes he'd be saved by a man with a golden suit and mask. Somebody familiar. Himself.

Three years ago, death took Mags in her sleep. He's certain if she'd been awake, there would have been a fight between her and the reaper.

* * *

_Finnick traced his index finger over the contours of the mask in his hand. "This is mine?"_

"_Yes." Mags nodded and placed a hand over his. "With a mask, you can be anybody. So choose carefully."_

* * *

They say a hero is only as good as his weapon. Lancer's weapon is his trident.

His trident isn't like any normal fisherman's trident. It's retractable, for one thing. Both the staff and the outside tines retract inward, so he doesn't have to worry about carrying a big, bulky polearm around, particularly when he's chasing down a criminal. There's a special place on his utility belt where he can hook it on and keep it close.

It's also custom-built and mechanized, carefully crafted by a genius friend of his years ago. Of course he never shirks on his workout, maneuvering and twirling the metal contraption with an ease that can only develop through years of training, but the trident boasts the ability to take the energy exerted and multiply the ensuing forcing by up to ten times. Sometimes he uses it to supercharge his penetrating attacks. Sometimes he uses it as a phantom burst of devastating force, like he'd done at the bank. It isn't the most state-of-the-art piece of equipment, he'll admit, but it's his.

That's something he has to remember when he falls to the ground and the trident clatters at his enemy's feet.

Shatter picks it up and gingerly holds the staff of the trident in both hands, as if testing the weight of it. "This is a lovely bit of machinery you have here," she muses, grazing her thumb along the sleek metal. "Where did you get it from?"

Lancer says nothing while he climbs back onto his feet. She's several meters away, but her attention is on his trident. If he can move fast enough, he could surprise her, grab her and disarm her, take back what's his. He braces one foot behind him, ready to charge, but as soon as he does, her eyes snap to attention back to him and her hands tighten around the trident.

"Ah-ah," she chides, pointing the tines in his direction.

He freezes. He's been on the receiving end of his own trident before, and it's not fun.

Shatter doesn't go much further than the threat. Instead she slowly twirls the trident in her hand, a mockery of his own movements. She doesn't maneuver it as expertly as he can, but he is no doubt at a disadvantage, whether she can wield it properly or not.

She springs backwards onto a higher rooftop, just a few effortless hops to scale up the building. Still holding his trident in her hands, she looks down at him from the ledge. "This has been a lovely evening, Lancer, but I must be off. Walls to break. Systems to destroy. You know the drill."

"Wait—!"

He's not sure what else he's going to say, because pleading with a super villain is not his style. Some sort of threat is just on the tip of his tongue when his trident comes plummeting towards him. He catches it, just barely, before it hits the ground. Shatter grins down at him from her perch. "Don't worry, Lancer. I've no intention of taking your weapon. If anything, I'm certain I could just make my own."

* * *

"Psst."

"What?"

"Johanna."

"Johanna?" Finnick looks up.

"_Shh!" _Peeta's hand comes down hard on his skull and grips tightly, stopping him from looking.

"_Ow!_ What the hell?!" he hisses. He clutches at his scalp and glares.

Peeta motions with a wag of his chin, and Finnick takes the hint to look more discreetly.

From across the large room, he sees Johanna Mason, one of the copy editors, looking in his direction. They lock eyes for a moment, but when she notices he's actually looking back at her, she scowls and glares back down at her work.

Peeta ribs him. Literally ribs him, because he's jabbing his elbow against his ribs. "She's totally been giving you eyes all morning."

Finnick swats away Peeta's pointy elbow and snorts, "Eyes? She looks like she wants to murder me."

"Or sleep with you."

"What's the difference?" he mutters under his breath, too quiet for Peeta to catch.

* * *

Lancer crashes through the window of Crane Research &amp; Development, directly in the room he knows Shatter to be. He _will_ capture her this time, because he knows what's right.

She's fiddling with her gauntlet again, connected to many strands of wires, in turn connected to the machines that surround them. When he makes his entrance, she looks up for a fleeting moment, but returns her attention to her gauntlet once more and says nothing, fingers working furiously. The way she does it is very unlike how she acted at Cashmere &amp; Gloss headquarters, when she had disregarded him out of cockiness and theatricality. Now, she works frantically, visor flashing, eyes wild as she repeatedly looks back and forth between him and her work. He hasn't seen her this frantic since—

He sees it. It happens in a split second, the flitting of her gaze from him to the wires, but he sees it. He knows what he has to do. This will mark the day Shatter gave away too much.

Lancer stabs his trident down into the coil of wires, grits his teeth against the sudden electrical current that jolts up his arms, and yanks them free with an audible snap. Shatter cries out, shields her face with her arms – Whatever she was working on, it's gone. The machines spark, the wires spark, _everything_ sparks. He fears the place may explode, but then all the screens flicker off and the room goes dark.

And then she screams. She screams long, and she screams loud. It's an angry, furious sound, reverberates around the room like a storm.

The air is electric from more than just the machines now. It's electric with her fury. She grabs the closest thing to her, a metal table, and hurls it his direction. He doesn't dodge out of the way. Instead he thrusts his trident forward and sends forth a phantom burst. It's not enough to send it back to her, but the table wavers in the air from the force for a bit before clattering to the ground.

She runs from the room, and he is quick on the draw to follow. As he turns the corner, he sees a chair heading straight his way. He ducks, dodges it, and continues chasing. When he rounds another corner, she's suddenly in front of him, punching with a readied strike, but he pivots on his heel and spins out of the way. In retaliation, he grabs her wrist and barrels straight at her, leaps, tackles her to the ground.

They crash through a set of doors, tumble together, limbs over head, into one of the conference rooms. She rolls to her feet first, regains the distance between them, and hurls another table at him. He narrowly ducks; the table smashes through the window behind him. He doesn't have time to hope the table doesn't hurt anybody outside because another table is flying his way. One strike of his trident, and the table splits in two down the middle. The energy in the room swirls around them, nothing short of explosive. They're two opposing forces, a hurricane meeting a tornado.

She's breathing heavily, but so is he. There's several meters distance between the two of them, and now they stand simply sizing each other up.

Shatter straightens, expression morphing into something unreadable, but the furious aura about her remains. She smacks the back of her fist against the window next to her, doesn't even flinch amid the shower of glass shards. The motion has none of her normal theatrics.

"I'll remember this," she hisses, and it's quiet.

Wordlessly, she steps in front of the opening she'd just made and falls backwards out of the building.

She's not flying this time. She's falling.

When he looks over the edge to see where she's headed, he sees no trace of her anywhere. She's disappeared. A curl of smoke in the wind.

Lancer leans against the nearest wall, taking a moment to catch his breath. He's done it. Sort of. Judging by her anger, she didn't get what she came for after-all. He had bested her, but still, she'd gotten away.

And that's not a victory.

* * *

_"Don't underestimate anybody, no matter who they are. They'll see it for what it is. A sign of weakness. And don't think they won't try and use it against you." Mags followed up her words with a swift whack of her cane against his back. Finnick yelped and glared at her, rubbing his hand over the spot. "Can we take a break? I'm not really in the mindset of hurting women and the elderly. And you're both."_

_Mags grinned. "You'll be amazed at what you can do when your life is on the line."_

* * *

He and Peeta are getting a snack at the bodega across the street. He really wanted chocolate milk, something to satisfy his sweet tooth.

"Did you hear about the fight against Lancer and Shatter yesterday?" Peeta says conversationally while he looks around the bodega to find something to eat.

"What about it?" Finnick replies, fishing for loose change in his wallet.

"He managed to keep her from the Crane R&amp;D building over on Cornucopia Avenue. Still haven't managed to capture her though. PCPD thinks she was trying to hack into their records. Maybe steal some of their research. I dunno. Lancer stopped her though. Papers said it wasn't a ton of damage, so the company will be up and running again soon." Peeta idly ruffles his blonde curls. "Man. I wonder about all the sorts of stuff she could have stolen, though. See what they're really up to maybe."

Finnick looks from the man at the register, who is ringing up his chocolate milk, to Peeta. "What do you mean?"

Peeta shrugs, comparing two different oranges in his hands. "Well, I dunno. If you see a record that's so clean, don't you get a little suspicious? That's what some people say, a lot of conspiracy bullshit, you know. Stuff that's passed around Twitter and all that, went a bit viral a couple months ago. Like they've researched and developed a lot of the pharmaceutical stuff on the market, but any failed cases are always covered up or something. It's just an old rumor though, and the Crane board denies anything about it."

Immediately, pictures of a whitewhitemuchtoowhite coat and millions of roses rise in his head, because yes, he _does_ get suspicious of something too clean. He opens his mouth to ask something else, but he snaps his jaw shut when he hears the distinct sounds of an explosion. He and Peeta exchange a quick glance, then run out of the bodega to see what the commotion is. In the distance, he sees a plume of smoke rising, perhaps just a few blocks down. Finnick squints. It doesn't look to be smoke from a fire, but he can't say for sure unless he sees the cause for himself. Unceremoniously, he shoves his carton of chocolate milk into his co-worker's arms. "Here, hold this. Call the police." As he sprints in the direction of the smoke cloud, he hears Peeta calling after him, "Hey! Finn! _Hey!_"

While everybody on the street is caught up in either running to the commotion – to get a closer look – or running from the site – to get to safety – he changes into his suit. The smoke isn't from a fire after-all, merely dust rising from the gaping holes marring the face of the building. He sees no sign of ash and he doesn't smell anything chemical in the air, so those holes most likely weren't made by explosives. Instead, they look like they were knocked down by a wrecking ball from the inside, and he has a good idea who the culprit could be.

First responders from PCPD have just arrived, but Heavensbee has yet to make an appearance, so he bypasses the police and heads straight into the building through one of the gaping holes. He sees her immediately, near an untouched wall, mid-swing and about to strike, lips pulled back into a snarl, but she sees him too and stops herself. Slowly, Shatter lowers her arm. The snarl melts from her face, leaving her with a shockingly neutral expression. Then she sprints out a different hole, opposite his, and leaps up towards the rooftop with a few wall bounds. He chases after her, wordlessly, grappling onto the roof as well.

He feels another chase oncoming, but when he gets onto the roof, she's standing there. Waiting for him. Wind whipping at her hair.

"What's with you and always trying to ruin my fun, Lancer, hmmm?"

The words suit her, but the tone is different. There's something different about her entirely, something electric. Gone are the cheeky smirks, the mischievous glint in her gaze. Her eyes are narrowed and set hard like stone, and her painted lips are pulled into a thin, grim line. He's staring at a woman who is as dangerous and deadly as a super villain should be.

Perhaps it's finally time to play.

Lancer never answers her question. They stand in silence, staring each other down.

She moves first.

Shatter closes the distance quickly, strikes out with a right hook, which he parries, kicks with her left leg, which he artfully dodges. She hops back, as if assessing his performance, but springs forward again a moment later, delivering several more strikes in quick succession while he blocks and dodges.

"What do you accomplish when you fight against what I want?" she hisses through gritted teeth. She moves aggressively, walking him backwards along the rooftop with every strike like she's leading a dance. She lands a hit against his ribs, and he staggers back, skirting the edge of the roof, but he swiftly realizes the danger and moves away. This time he catches her with a kick to her stomach, and she's the one to fall back. She recovers mid-fall with a graceful back handspring.

"Who is there to _save_ here, Lancer?" Her words at like spitfire, matching the intensity of her strikes. He narrowly dodges a blow to his head. Instead, her fist connects with the brick of a wall, denting the area in a puff of rubble and dust.

"There's always a better way!" he shouts back. He sweeps out with the blunt end of his trident, knocking her right off her feet. He turns the business end on her, but she rolls out of the way.

"_Is_ there?" She springs back up. She's at him again. Her strikes grow more furious, more frantic; he has to push every muscle in him just to keep up. "Or is there always _another_ way? A _different_ way?"

He leaps away to get some distance between the two of them, keeps his eyes locked on her. She's matching his movements, jump for jump, chasing after him. He doesn't realize his mistake. Not until he lands unsteadily on the edge of the roof, and ends up losing his footing.

Everything happens too quick in the seconds that fly by. First, he teeters off the edge and he swears he feels something grapple around his wrist and slip away, as if something made a grab for him too late. The next moment, he's whizzing past rows and rows of windows, catching onto clothing lines all on the way down. Blindly, he reaches for something, anything to grab onto, manages to snag onto a metal rung of a ladder and jerk himself out of his freefall, but the momentum of it causes him to crash face first into the adjacent railing. Stars bursting beneath his eyelids. He lets go of the rung and again he tumbles, landing in a heap of stockpiled garbage bags, rolling, and finally impacting with the cold, hard concrete. He groans from where he lies, every single one of his bones aching. He touches one hand to his nose and winces. It doesn't feel broken, but warm sticky blood gushes from his nostrils.

Somewhere in his swimming vision, he sees Shatter above him, silhouetted before the bright sun. She leaps from her perch and descends upon him rapidly, one fist winded back, ready to deliver the death blow. Far too dazed to roll out of the way in time, he screws his eyes shut on reflex and waits for impact. It lands, and the sound of something breaking rings loud in his ears.

One. Two. Three.

He feels nothing.

He's still alive, and when he opens his eyes, he sees Shatter's fist is firmly planted in the concrete just inches from his head. She stands above him, eyes set and steely, now so clearly visible behind her tinted visor. Suddenly, she leans in close, close enough to kiss him. He can feel the warmth of her breath ghosting against his lips.

But she doesn't kiss him. She bypasses his mouth and whispers right in his ear. "One day, you'll see."

Just barely, he registers the sound of shouting and sirens in the distance, growing louder and louder. Shatter looks to the direction of the noise, then back down at him, as if considering her options. There's a novel in her eyes, something caught between a tragicomedy and a war story, but he cannot make sense of it, because she closes her eyelids and moves away. Again she flees. And he doesn't follow.

* * *

Finnick sports a very impressive black eye the next day, and this time, his glasses can do nothing to hide it. Peeta leans back in his chair and peers around the partition separating their little cubicles. Finnick ignores him, eyes stalwart on his computer screen even as his officemate's gaze bores into him.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Okie dokie."

* * *

Without Mags around anymore, Finnick quickly learned the value of treating his own injuries. Despite the ferocity of his tussle with Shatter a few days ago, his wounds had luckily all been rather superficial, leaving him with only some bruises here and there and a bit of tender soreness in his nose. Miraculously, there was nothing broken. He spent the week recuperating at home without donning the mask once. He's not the only costumed vigilante in the city patrolling the streets; there was no point in exerting himself. Nobody contacts him to put on the costume.

Not until a week rolls by.

The sight is familiar. There are numerous PCPD cars lining the streets, areas blockaded off from the public and news reporters. He finds his usual point-of-contact easily in the throng of police officers, looking harrowed and barking orders. "Heavensbee!"

"Lancer! Thank God you're here. We've got another hostage situation."

"Shatter again?" he says, steeling himself.

Heavensbee shakes his head, wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. At this, Lancer raises his brow. He opens his mouth to ask for more information, but both their attentions are caught by a spray of gunfire and the sounds of screaming from the bank building. Instinctively, he and Heavensbee duck behind the police car right in front of them. Neither of them are hurt, but the shouts continue, and with it, the threat of more gunfire.

"There's five robbers in there. There are at least twenty hostages. As you can see, the robbers are armed and dangerous. We can confirm, there are women, children, and elderly in there. Last we've heard, they haven't harmed anybody... yet. But they're demanding thirty-million and to be left alone. I need you to end this."

Lancer nods. He hasn't dealt with gunfire like this in a long time. But he can handle it. "Keep your men close by for back-up. I'll take care of it."

Heavensbee nods, raises his walkie-talkie to his mouth and relays the orders.

There are five of them in total, just as Heavensbee said, all wearing ski masks and armed with assault rifles. The hostages are all curled up, lining along the bank walls. He sees a group of teenagers huddling in on each other, an elderly couple grasping each other's hands, mouthing a silent prayer, a mother clutching her two children close to her breast.

He leaps in then, right in the open where they can see him. They never fire first. Not when they see the costume.

True to his thoughts, one of the robbers sneers, "Who's the fruit in the suit?"

Lancer quirks a brow. "Your physician wouldn't be happy to hear about your aversion to fruit. You must not be getting your daily vitamins."

"Fuck you!"

_Not the best comeback. They must be new at this_, he thinks.

One of them raises his rifle at him and fires a fresh round of bullets his way. Lancer darts to the side, leaping behind one of the service desks for cover.

Compared to Shatter, who works alone and never, ever uses a firearm, they _should_ be more dangerous. But they're clumsy, erratic, and uncoordinated, five cowards hiding behind big flashy guns. He knows this just by looking at them. They're dangerous, yes. But not in the way he knows danger.

That's all he needs to think to spur him into action. Still tucked safely behind the desk, he launches the whole thing at the group. It knocks two of the robbers off their feet, pins them right underneath the heavy desk. Now with their attention held elsewhere, he charges straight at another robber, knees him right in the gut and yanks the rifle from his hands. He shoves the guy at another one, sending them both off their feet.

The last one raises his gun at him. He twirls his trident over his head once (_For effect_, he'll tell himself later) and thrusts the prongs towards the man. The force is strong enough to disarm him and sweep him off his feet. He doesn't miss a beat. While the man is still in the air, Lancer hurls his trident forward, pinning him to the wall by the back of his shirt and leaving him dangling.

He cracks his knuckles and grins at the hanging man, the same one to insult him. "Looks like you're gonna have to go to your doctor for more than just vitamins."

Before long, he has all five in submission and safely handcuffed in the back of a police van. Heavensbee claps him on the shoulder and he smiles over a job well done. He doesn't stay to talk to any of the news reporters that clamor up to him to get a word on his daring rescue.

There's a hollow feeling in his chest, and he's not sure what to make of it. Is this what victory feels like?

* * *

The week ends with as much fanfare as a nine-to-five office monkey can possibly muster on a Friday evening. Somehow he had managed to finish and deliver the marketing campaign he and his team had been slaving over with most of his hair intact. The finished campaign itself is only a ghost of his initial vision, frankensteined and dissected to high hell by the client, but he's simply glad to have it over with.

"This weekend, I'm going to sleep for ten million years." Finnick rubs the back of his neck, feeling the stiff muscles there, while he and Peeta walk out of the agency building without looking back.

Peeta lets out a bark of laughter. "Before you do that, you should come have dinner with us tonight. Whaddya say? Katniss's friend Madge is in town. A pretty blonde," Peeta says with a waggle of his eyebrows.

He has to smile. Same old Peeta. "Thanks, Peet, but I have a previous engagement." He holds his hand up to hail a cab.

At that, Peeta's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. "A date?" he sputters. "When'd you get a date?"

Finnick doesn't answer and doesn't make eye contact when a yellow cab pulls up next to him.

"Somebody I know?" Peeta presses on.

He's halfway into the cab when he looks back over his shoulder and flashes Peeta a dimpled grin. "You could say that."

* * *

He keeps the cab running when he reaches the apartment building complex of his date. (The cab driver looks skeptical about keeping the engine running in such a seedy part of the city, so Finnick has to toss him a few extra bills to do so.) He's worn his finest suit, a crisply pressed shirt and trousers, red silk tie, dress shoes freshly polished. Even on his meager salary, he can afford to look nice.

The building doesn't have an operating elevator, so he has to climb the stairs to get to the fifth floor. He sticks out like a sore thumb in his pristine suit next to the gray spackled walls. His appearance just screams for somebody to mug him; he almost wouldn't fault anybody for trying. Almost. Nonetheless, he's certain he could fight off whatever unsavory beings lurk in the shadows.

It sort of comes with the territory of being a superhero.

He reaches the apartment door, one he might have been able to locate easier had it not been for the missing number plaque on it. With one hand idly tucked in his trouser pocket, he raps his knuckles against the door and waits.

"The door's unlocked," a silky voice calls from inside.

He lets himself in at the invitation and is immediately treated to the sight of her silhouette dancing behind a changing screen. He watches her form slowly roll on her nylons, slip into her dress, zip it up, bathed by the moonlight streaming in from the window behind her. Surely some lucky Panemer must have quite the view from their balcony. She steps out behind the screen, and his gaze roves over her unabashedly. She, too, sticks out drastically from her surroundings. The cocktail dress fits her like a glove, her dark hair curled and parted to the side to drape elegantly over one eye; she's wearing a smile like she has the world in her pocket.

He returns the smile. How could he not? "You look lovely tonight, Miss Analee."

"Stop." Her bottom lip, painted ruby red, purses into a pout. "I do so hate that name and you know it."

He arches a brow. "Then what do you prefer? Annie? Or perhaps Shatte—"

She hushes him with one perfectly manicured finger against his lips. "Not here." The side of her hip grazes his leg when she bypasses him to grab her clutch purse from the table. Then she crosses to a lone full-length mirror leaning against the wall, one of the few pieces of furniture in the entire rundown apartment. He watches all the while.

"I'm afraid I have to be concerned about you keeping the door unlocked in such a neighborhood."

"Do you?" she says, a hint of amusement in her voice. "With the rabble in this building? I'm certain I could handle it."

Finnick nods once. "I'm certain you could. Although I must wonder why I'm never given the chance to pick you up from your actual place of residence."

"I think we're both in the papers enough as it is. Besides, you know I like exercising a bit of mystery." She pauses from running her fingers through her hair to look over her shoulder at him. "If anything, I should be asking about you. I half-expected you to cancel on me. You're not too badly banged up, are you?"

His expression softens. He says nothing, only shakes his head. She nods and turns her attention back to the mirror. Satisfied with the way she looks, she moves towards the door, stops and looks at him expectantly. "Are you taking me somewhere nice tonight, Finnick?"

He catches up in a few long strides and opens the door for her with a bob of his head. "Only the finest for you, Miss Cresta."

* * *

They crash through the door of his apartment, lips locked, hands roaming. He manages to kick the door closed with his heel just before she slams him against it and pins him there.

"You should have let me pay for dinner," she whispers huskily, kissing down the column of his throat, fingers dancing to loosen his tie. "I made quite a haul this week."

"You know I don't like where you get your money from." He cups her ass, pressing her tighter against his body, then rolls the two of them so he can pin her against the counter, lifts her up a bit to keep her there, the granite edges digging into her thighs. He delves into her mouth with his tongue again, traces the top row of her teeth, while she works at untucking his shirt from his trousers and unbuttoning it.

"A girl's gotta eat." The words morph into a pleasured sigh when he sucks on the pulse point below her ear. Finnick chuckles, a low throaty sound that reverberates against her skin.

"I thought that's what I was here for," he remarks.

"Mmm-hmmmmm." She forces his head back with her hands and kisses him again, bites down on his lower lip, soothes it with her tongue. She nudges him with her knee against his leg, pushes away from the granite counter and moves him up against another wall, lips never parting from his. They travel across his studio apartment in bursts, fighting for dominance, stopping only to kiss each other breathless and depart with another article of clothing, leaving a trail like breadcrumbs.

They just barely make it to the bed. He's completely naked by the time the back of his calves hit the mattress. He collapses backwards onto it, while she takes full advantage of the position and immediately straddles his lap. She's still wearing her panties, but that's quickly remedied with one smooth motion of his expert hands. He massages her breasts, tweaks a nipple between his fingers until it hardens into a peak.

She's peppering warm kisses all over his face, his chin, his nose, the curve of his jaw. He sucks in a breath through his teeth when her lips travel to his brow, irritating the sore area around his eye, now a pale, splotchy yellow. "You gave me a right shiner, love," he says, trying to sound wounded.

Annie kisses the spot again, and he's not sure if she's trying to soothe or irritate it. "_I_ didn't. You fell on your own. Besides, you ruined my attempts at the Crane building. Just a few more seconds and the files would have been mine."

"You needn't be so rough when you exact your revenge." Even when he says it, he grabs onto her hips and rolls the two of them over, nudging his thigh between her legs, rubbing right there. Immediately, she moves her hips, grinding against his leg; it's not exactly what she wants, but she'll take what she can get.

"Let me help you with that," he murmurs roughly, smirking against her neck. He replaces his leg with his fingers, rubs up and down her slit, feeling the warm wet heat, inserts one digit, two, and pumps in and out.

She hums her approval, her slender fingers trailing up and down the expanse of his back while he pleasures her. Then she grips his arm. "Finnick…" He meets her gaze, darkened with want, so perfectly mirroring his own. He nods, withdraws his fingers and repositions his hips.

Usually, they're more teasing at this point, a bit of a game between the two of them to see which one will buckle first. But they're both too needy, too full of desire to do that now. She's spreading herself readily for him, and he's poised to take her. When then join together, it's smooth – just one push to bury him up to the hilt inside her – and it feels like that moment of breaching the ocean surface for air after a very long time underwater.

They settle into a steady rhythm, rediscovering the feeling of being with each other. The apartment is quiet, save for a chorus of their heavy breathing. Somehow, she ends up on top again, riding his cock. She always ends up on top, despite his best efforts sometimes, but he's not complaining.

"Say my name," she demands in his ear, fingers tangled in his ruddy locks.

"Annie," he whispers reverently, chants it in the throes of passion. "Annie, Annie, Annie."

"_Finnick_," she answers back.

They call to each other again and again, seeking, seeking, gasping for breath, finding each other, entwining, losing it once more. She comes with a strangled moan, a sound that echoes his own. She's tight all around him and he's deep inside her and it's so very, very good.

His hips jerk shallowly in the aftershocks of their lovemaking. She lazily climbs off of him, and together they collapse onto the mattress, struggling to catch their breath, silk sheets clinging to their sweat-soaked bodies. She nuzzles against his neck while he holds her close, idly stroking her arm up and down. For a few silent minutes, her hand hovers over a still-healing bruised area over his ribs, like she's suddenly unsure about touching him, but he tugs her hand into his, forcing her to meet his gaze. Everything he wants to tell her, everything he can't speak outside these walls, is in his eyes. _I'm okay. Be with me right now._

It doesn't last. It can't. Eventually, Annie extricates herself from his arms, picks up her undergarments and cocktail dress to slip them back on, but she doesn't bother with the nylons. They'll go nicely with the garter belt she left behind two weeks ago, and the silk panties a few weeks before that.

He follows her with his eyes, hands folded behind his head while he lounges on the mattress. Something between longing and lust stirs in his chest. "Won't you stay?" he asks quietly.

"You know I never do," she says without looking at him. Of course, she's right. She shimmies her hips to pull the dress on, languidly zips it back up, and goes searching for her shoes.

He sits up fully, sheets pooling over his lap. "It's my birthday, you know."

Annie stops buckling one of her Manolos and turns at that, peering over her shoulder. "Happy birthday." She crosses back over to him, rests one knee against the mattress, dips her hand low and curls it around his half-hard cock from over the sheet, almost painfully, a strange mix of pleasure and pain from the cool touch of silk and the strength of her grip. He gasps.

"You remember when we first met?" she breathes against the shell of his ear, squeezing him to full-mast.

"Yeah," he sighs. "You came from Oregon. An industrial and systems engineering student. I was studying advertising and you saw me through the dorm window while I was prepping for a final." His breath hitches when she begins stroking him. "S-so you learned how to pick the locks on the windows. Scared the crap out of me. But you let me take you out." Finnick releases a shaky laugh and closes his eyes to the sensations she's giving him.

When he opens them again, she's staring right at him. "You said there wasn't a single thing you couldn't take apart. Not a lock. Not a machine. Not a mild-mannered advertising student with a costume in his closet."

It was the reason why he refused a roommate all four years. Sneaking back into his dorm room at all hours of the morning was easy. Trying to explain a recognizable spandex suit was the hard part, even in the art campus.

Finnick grinds up against her hand, finding that delicious friction. Annie obliges, quickening her pace. His head tips back – an action he can't stop when she rubs the pad of her thumb at the point where the head of his cock meets the shaft – but she firmly grabs hold of his chin and forces his gaze back. "And do you remember what they said about me?"

"It was different. At first. Hmmm…" He's not sure if he's even making sense anymore. All he can focus on are the ministrations of her hand as she pumps him closer and closer to the edge.

Annie was, without a doubt, the most promising engineering student the school had ever seen. She was considered a genius, borderline eccentric, with the way she poured herself into her work. She spoke eloquently of her endeavors, charming faculty and peers alike. The school's darling. Then she took her critical eye to the grad students, picked apart their ideas and theories, all while smiling that sweet smile of hers. Suddenly her little projects weren't so endearing anymore, but a lot more threatening. She said nothing of it, until it all came to a head when her classmates collectively shunned her from a collaborative project between the university and one of the biggest accounts in the city, a project she should have been a shoe-in to lead.

"They slandered your work. Snubbed you from all big projects. Called you crazy. Mad. So you said… said… Aw, _fuck_." That is most certainly _not _what she said; he never finishes what he was really going to say because he's breathing too hard, and he comes with a cry of her name, a dark spot blooming on the silk sheet.

"Nothing would ever make me happier than to prove them wrong," she finishes for him, releasing her grip.

He had noticed immediately the way her eyes had darkened, a sinister edge that had always lurked behind her little smiles, like molten sugar. From that day on, she worked like a demon possessed. She wrote an entire thesis on the flaws of the structure and security system on Thread Island, the biggest correctional institution in Panem City. The whole paper was incredibly detailed, filled with information no normal university student should ever know. Her professors, and the dean by extension, had no idea what else to do. The FBI came the next day, searched her dorm room while hundreds of students crowded around to see the commotion, and she just stood in the corner with her hands behind her back like it was the most normal thing in the world.

It wasn't until they confiscated her projects from the lab that the marble of her demeanor broke. She ran at them, screamed that they couldn't take her work, that they had no right. She clawed for the machines they were carting away while he held her back to keep her from outright attacking them.

And then they expelled her, and when she walked off school grounds while he followed at her heels, he thought it was the end of it.

It wasn't the end. She tore down walls and built an empire with the remnants, crafted something so much better and yet so much worse. The young business magnate, Analee Cresta. Genius. Billionaire. Engineer. Hero. Villain. Super villain. Enemy. Friend. Lover.

None of it embodies her wholly enough. She's celestial – a black hole, eating away at all truths, tucked inside porcelain skin.

He caresses her hip with his thumb, drawing invisible patterns on her skin. He's not really sure when his hands got there. "And now?" he asks quietly.

Annie stares at him for a long moment. He wonders if she understands what he truly means – _what makes you happier now_ – but she shatters his thoughts, like she shatters everything she comes in contact with, holds his face between both her hands and kisses him fully.

"Tuesday," Annie murmurs against his lips. "Coin Bank on the corner of Adams and Harvey, I'll be leaving through the basement at 5:00. Then Thursday at Peace Pharmaceuticals at 1:30. I don't know when I'll hit Crane R&amp;D again. You set me back quite a bit. But it will be soon."

"When will you show me?"

She smiles, trails her finger down the bridge of his nose. "One day, you'll see."

She finishes buckling on her heels and leaves with a flutter of her fingertips.

He stares at the door in silence long after she leaves. Then he flops back onto the mattress and throws one arm over his eyes.

He's unsure what will visit him tonight – dream or nightmare.

* * *

"_Ouch! Mags, that hurts!"_

"_Quit your whining, boy. This'll only be a second."_

_Finnick mumbled something unintelligible and bit back another curse as Mags dabbed a cotton pad soaked in rubbing alcohol against a cut just above his brow. He'd just returned from patrolling, a fairly recent responsibility for him; Mags had been insistent that he wait a few years before actually putting his training to use on the streets. He had come back to Mags with several cuts, none particularly deep, but for some reason, he was left visibly shaken over the whole ordeal._

_He threaded his fingers together, careful to keep still while Mags treated his cut. "He was a boy. Probably only fourteen or fifteen years-old. He had a knife, and…"_

_He swiped a hand angrily through his hair. "It's just... It's easy when it's a grown adult with a gun and you know they've lived long enough to know what they're doing isn't right. He just came right at me. Usually there's a look in their eyes when they see me. Fear, I guess. But this kid... He didn't look scared at all. He just came at me like he had nothing to lose. Like he didn't care if I just killed him instead of taking him to the police."_

_Finnick covered his face with both hands, silent for a long moment. "When does it start? When do people choose something like this? Is this what I signed up for? To throw a bunch of guys into prison, fill the place up, hope that they'll turn over a new leaf? Am I just cleaning up the garbage on the streets?"_

"_Oh, my dear boy," Mags said solemnly, melancholy in her eyes. "My sweet Finnick. You must understand something, and you will not like what I say. You've chosen a noble path. You have. But even so, your decision to do good for the city is one you cannot easily take back. You've shown your face to trouble already. So even if you no longer seek trouble, trouble still seeks you."_

_He snorted. "That sounds like some cheesy cliché."_

"_Maybe. But all clichés were born from truths at one time." She cupped his face with one wrinkled hand. "One day, you will understand. You are still young."_

"_Am I? Then why do I suddenly feel so old? Like I've had enough trouble for one lifetime already?" He said the last bit quietly, unaware of how closely his words mimicked Haymitch's years ago._

_"Finnick, it is not your place to get people to do what they already do not want to do. You cannot change a person truly, no matter how much you wish. But you can inspire them. You can guide the way. You can show them true wisdom. But ultimately the decision is theirs, and we can only hope for the best."_

_"So that's it? People are just good or evil? And I gotta figure out which one they are and deal with it?" His frown was morose. Mags was supposed to give him all the answers, make him feel better, but he was left with even more questions than he started with._

_Mags patted his leg, a comforting gesture. "Of course not. It is not so simple, boy. Not so simple at all."_

* * *

_Thanks for reading! Comments/reviews are greatly appreciated!_

_Don't forget to check out the "They Should Have Warned Us" tag on my tumblr for accompanying artwork and inspiration! Check my profile for my tumblr!_


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